Monday, October 29, 2007

Temple Mount updates

There is news for three items related to the Temple Mount:

Quarry: The Orthodox Union has new photos online (or if you prefer a slide show)

First Temple Period Remains:Leen Ritmeyer has marked out the find location on a couple of diagrams. The discovery matches his previous conclusion that this area was within the temple area of Hezekiah's time.

Temple Mount Destruction: The transcript from the government meeting about the bulldozer excavations is now online in Hebrew. Yitzhak Sapir has made the following observations:

Present at the meeting were archaeologists Yuval Baruch (district archaeologist of Jerusalem for the IAA), Gabriel Barkai and Meir Ben-Dov, as well as Shuka Dorfman, head of the IAA. Eilat Mazar was also invited but she doesn't appear to speak during the meeting.

Aside from their statements on the topics, which are really interesting, there are also some interesting statements by Limor Livnat, who was in the past Minister of Education and responsible for the IAA, and an architect who claims that when the dig began two months ago, he found a segment of the Northern Wall of the Temple, that was covered up the next day.

2 Comments:

I am somewhat confused about the current thought that this area is part of the Temple Mount rather than Fortress Antonia.Jesus said that not one stone would be left upon another, and that the whole complex would be leveled to the ground.Here the original walls are still standing as are many of the flagstone pavement blocks. I don’t think Jesus is a liar, so I don’t believe this is the location of the Temple site.The second to fifth century Jews worshipped in an area over and around the Gihon Spring, believing that is where the Temple stood.Can someone illumine me?Tony LisenbyMontgomery, Alabama

Tony - Jesus was speaking about the Temple, not the Temple Mount (which is simply a large plaza around the Temple). No stones of the Temple have ever been positively identified, so I think you could safely say that the prophecy was fulfilled. No respected scholar questions that what is known as the Temple Mount was Herod's Temple Mount. The evidence is overwhelming and indisputable. For very detailed and interesting information about everything we know about the Temple and Temple Mount, I would recommend that you read The Quest, by Leen Ritmeyer.